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Marketing science
By Beth DuFault
People often see science as a world apart: cool, rational and untouched by persuasion or performance. In this view, scientists simply discover truth, and truth speaks for itself.
But history tells a different story. Scientific theories do not simply reveal themselves; they compete for attention, credibility and uptake. US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr once suggested that “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market,” a line that helped popularise the metaphor of a “marketplace of ideas.”
"You might wonder why anyone beyond academia should care whether science is marketed. After all, every field uses communication and outreach. It matters because science is one of the few institutions people still rely on to anchor truth claims in evidence."
Beth DuFault
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